Archives for July, 2008

In a commentary on this morning’s Marketplace, the Cato Institute’s Will Wilkinson critiqued T. Boone Pickens’ new energy plan – and in doing so, painted a misleading picture of the government’s role our energy usage. Pickens wants wind energy to replace natural gas in electricity generation, and use the freed-up natural gas to fuel vehicles…

In the Wausau Daily Herald, Gannett Wisconsin Media reports that an explosion at the Packaging Corp of America in Bradley, Wisconsin killed three workers: Randy Hoegger, 55, and Steve Voermans, 52, both of Tomahawk, and Donald Snyder, 46, of Merrill. According to a company human resources manager, the men were performing maintenance on top of…

by revere, cross-posted at Effect Measure The FDA is saying they still aren’t sure how over 1200 Salmonella stpaul cases resulted from food chain contamination but they are saying its from jalapeno peppers grown in Mexico. This from a press release July 25:

Thanks to Carol Leonnig at the Washington Post and her confidential sources, we can see the true measure of Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao’s disrespect for U.S. workers, embodied in her proposed rule on risk assessement. I blogged first about this “secret rule” on July 8, with follow-ups (here and here), but the challenge for…

The Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin reports that a senior EPA official has told managers that they shouldn’t answer questions from reporters, congressional investigators, or the agency’s inspector general – instead, they should direct them to a press officer. (The group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility has more details.) Discouraging EPA employees from speaking with members of…

by revere, cross-posted at Effect Measure As we noted two days ago in a post about how the produce industry is now interested in tracking regulations they previously opposed after being whacked with billions of dollars in losses because of a protracted Salmonella outbreak whose source was presumably produce but couldn’t be easily traced, the…

The EPA comes under scrutiny this week: Jennifer Sass at NRDC’s Switchboard applauds the agency’s proposals to cancel all uses of the pesticide carbofuran. Andrew Schneider at Secret Ingredients warns of EPA moves to water down regulations determining the cancer-causing danger of asbestos exposure. Kate Sheppard at Gristmill reports on what a Senate committee heard…

Congressman George Miller (D-CA) and Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) have strongly urged Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to withdraw the proposed rule on occupational health risk assessment which her Department submitted to OMB on July 7. Their letter says: “we are deeply disappointed that the Department of Labor is working to slip through a rule that may have a…